Baby Sign language

Babies exposed to sign language babble with their hands

Baby sign language works by teaching basic concepts like eat, milk, bathroom, all done and more. Learn Signs

Their vocal cords aren't developed yet, edit, but they know what they want to say, and they know what they need. Parents can teach their infants starting at about six months associating things and actions, with signs.

Experts say the best way to teach your kids sign language is to have all the key people in their life use the language - like grandparents and babysitters. The benefits last long after the babies, are no longer babies.

Sign	Description	Think of
Milk	open and close one or both fists	milking a cow
Eat	bring "and" hand to mouth and tap lips	bringing food to mouth
Drink	bring "c" hand to mouth in a short arc	bringing cup to mouth
More	tap both "and" hands together	bringing something together with something else
Fan	twirl index finger in a circle	rotating fan blades
Dog	1. Pat thigh 2. Pat thigh, snap fingers	traditionally calling a dog
Cat	Trace "whiskers" on one or both sides of your mouth	cat whiskers
Daddy	tap "5" hand to your temple a few times	the temple area signifies male signs
Mommy	tap "5" hand to your chin a few times	the chin area signifies female signs

Babies are watching your language
From issue 2606 of New Scientist magazine, 02 June 2007, page 20
ALTHOUGH they can only babble, babies seem to have a keen eye for speech: they can distinguish between different languages simply by reading your lips.
Whitney Weikum and colleagues from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, showed babies videos of talking adults, with the sound turned off. Babies soon got bored of the silent clips, but they watched with renewed interest when speakers switched from English to French (Science, vol 316, p 1159).
This ability lasted only until the age of about 8 months - unless the babies came from bilingual households, when it continued. This suggests that visual cues may help babies avoid mixing up different languages, says Weikum. "It supports the idea that infants come prepared to learn multiple languages and are thus equipped to discriminate them auditorily and visually," she says.
Although there is no direct evidence that visual cues help children to learn a language, "it does suggest that in language learning, the brain may not be tied to speech per se", says Laura-Ann Petitto, a language development researcher at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. She previously showed that deaf babies use visual cues to learn sign language, but "never did we dream that young hearing babies acquiring spoken languages also use visual cues in this stunning way".